100 Best Poland Books of All Time

We've ranked the best poland books using expert recommendations, sales data, and millions of reader ratings. At Shortform, we know books. Our book guides are the best in the world. Learn why.

The Last Wish: Introducing the Witcher (The Witcher, #0.5) book cover1

The Last Wish: Introducing the Witcher (The Witcher, #0.5)

Andrzej Sapkowski

5.0
A special collector's edition of the New York Times bestselling novel that inspired the international hit video game: The Witcher.

Geralt of Rivia is a witcher. A cunning sorcerer. A merciless assassin.

And a cold-blooded killer.

His sole purpose: to destroy the monsters that plague the world.

But not everything monstrous-looking is evil and not everything fair is good. . . and in every fairy tale t
Rachel Miner portrait Recommended by Rachel Miner.
2

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

Olga Tokarczuk, Antonia Lloyd-Jones

5.0
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

"A brilliant literary murder mystery." --Chicago Tribune "Extraordinary. Tokarczuk's novel is funny, vivid, dangerous, and disturbing, and it raises some fierce questions about human behavior. My sincere admiration for her brilliant work." --Annie Proulx

In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poe
Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History (Maus, #1) book cover3

Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History (Maus, #1)

Art Spiegelman

5.0
A story of a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe and his son, a cartoonist who tries to come to terms with his father's story and history itself.
James Altucher portrait Recommended by James Altucher.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz book cover4

The Tattooist of Auschwitz

Heather Morris

4.9
Preview Summary
In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.

Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also
Flights book cover5

Flights

Olga Tokarczuk

4.9
From the incomparably original Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, Flights interweaves reflections on travel with an in-depth exploration of the human body, broaching life, death, motion, and migration. Chopin's heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly des
6

The Zookeeper's Wife

Diane Ackerman

4.8
When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw—and the city's zoo along with it. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski began smuggling Jews into empty cages. Another dozen "guests" hid inside the Zabinskis' villa, emerging after dark for dinner, socializing, and, during rare moments of calm, piano concerts. Jan, active in the Polish resistance, kept am
The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939–45 book cover7

The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939–45

Władysław Szpilman

4.8
The last live broadcast on Polish Radio, on September 23, 1939, was Chopin's Nocturne in C# Minor, played by a young pianist named Wladyslaw Szpilman, until his playing was interrupted by German shelling. It was the same piece and the same pianist, when broadcasting was resumed six years later. The Pianist is Szpilman's account of the years inbetween, of the death and cruelty inflicted on the Jews
8

Lilac Girls (Lilac Girls, #1)

Martha Hall Kelly

4.8
Inspired by the life of a real World War II heroine, this debut novel reveals a story of love, redemption, and secrets that were hidden for decades.

New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate and a new love on the horizon. But Caroline’s world is forever changed when Hitler’s army invades Poland in September 1939—and then sets its sights on France
Night book cover9

Night

Elie Wiesel

4.8
Night is Elie Wiesel's masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This new translation by Marion Wiesel, Elie's wife and frequent translator, presents this seminal memoir in the language and spirit truest to the author's original intent. And in a substantive new preface, Elie reflects on the enduring importan
Johanna Reiss portraitSteven Katz portrait Recommended by Johanna Reiss and Steven Katz.
Johanna Reiss portrait
Johanna Reiss

Elie Wiesel wrote..that he was considering running into the barbed wire once, but he didn’t because his father needed him. [source]

Steven Katz portrait
Steven Katz

Probably the best known memoir that has been written about the experience of the death camps. [source]

10

Solaris

Stanisław Lem

4.8
A classic work of science fiction by renowned Polish novelist and satirist Stanislaw Lem.

When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds a painful, hitherto unconscious memory embodied in the living physical likeness of a long-dead lover. Others examining the planet, Kelvin learns, are plagued with their own repressed and newly corporeal memories
Blood of Elves (The Witcher, #1) book cover11

Blood of Elves (The Witcher, #1)

Andrzej Sapkowski

4.7
For more than a hundred years humans, dwarves, gnomes and elves lived together in relative peace. But times have changed, the uneasy peace is over and now the races once again fight each other - and themselves: Dwarves are killing their kinsmen, and elves are murdering humans and elves, at least those elves who are friendly to humans... Into this tumultuous time is born a child for whom the witche
Emanuela Zaccone portrait Recommended by Emanuela Zaccone.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas book cover12

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

John Boyne

4.7
If you start to read this book, you will go on a journey with a nine-year-old boy named Bruno. (Though this isn't a book for nine-year-olds.) And sooner or later you will arrive with Bruno at a fence.

Fences like this exist all over the world. We hop you never have to encounter one.
13

Poland

James A. Michener and Steve Berry

4.7
In this sweeping novel, James A. Michener chronicles eight tumultuous centuries as three Polish families live out their destinies. The Counts Lubonski, the petty nobles Bukowksi, and the peasants Buk are at some times fiercely united, at others tragically divided. With an inspiring tradition of resistance to brutal invaders, from the barbarians to the Nazis, and a heritage of pride that burns thro
14

The Painted Bird

Jerzy Kosinski

4.7
Originally published in 1965, The Painted Bird established Jerzy Kosinski as a major literary figure. Called by the Los Angeles Times "one of the most imposing novels of the decade," it was eventually translated into more than thirty languages.

A harrowing story that follows the wanderings of a boy abandoned by his parents during World War II, The Painted Bird is a dark novel that examines the prox
Randall Grahm portrait Recommended by Randall Grahm.
Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin book cover15

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

Timothy Snyder

4.6
Americans call the Second World War “The Good War.” But before it even began, America’s wartime ally Josef Stalin had killed millions of his own citizens—and kept killing them during and after the war. Before Hitler was finally defeated, he had murdered six million Jews and nearly as many other Europeans. At war’s end, both the German and the Soviet killing sites fell behind the iron curtain, leav
Eric Weinstein portraitAntony Beevor portraitEdward Lucas portrait Recommended by Eric Weinstein, Antony Beevor, Edward Lucas, and 1 others.
Antony Beevor portrait
Antony Beevor

This book is about…the Stalinist repression of the areas known as the borderlands, which Snyder has termed the bloodlands. Snyder is looking at the deliberate mass murder of civilians in a particular zone of Europe between about 1930, at the start of the second Ukraine famine, and 1945. [source]

Edward Lucas portrait
Edward Lucas

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin offers the best account of the most important and terrible years of the last century, when Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler jointly consigned the territories and people between their two empires to the meat-grinder. [source]

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence book cover16

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence

Michael Pollan

4.6
Preview Summary
Could psychedelic drugs change our worldview? One of America's most admired writers takes us on a mind-altering journey to the frontiers of human consciousness

When LSD was first discovered in the 1940s, it seemed to researchers, scientists and doctors as if the world might be on the cusp of psychological revolution. It promised to shed light on the deep mysteries of consciousness, as well as offer
Daniel Goleman portraitYuval Noah Harari portraitAndrew Weil portrait Recommended by Daniel Goleman, Yuval Noah Harari, Andrew Weil, and 5 others.
Daniel Goleman portrait
Daniel Goleman

Author

Michael Pollan masterfully guides us through the highs, lows, and highs again of psychedelic drugs. How to Change Your mind chronicles how it’s been a longer and stranger trip than most any of us knew. [source]

Andrew Weil portrait
Andrew Weil

Michael Pollan assembles a great deal of information here on the history, science, and effects of psychedelics. I found his frank recounting of his recent experiences with LSD, psilocybin, and toad venom most revealing. They appear to have softened his materialistic views and opened him to the possibilities of higher consciousness. He did, indeed, change his mind. [source]

17

This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

Tadeusz Borowski, Barbara Vedder, Michael Kandel, Jan Kott

4.6
Tadeusz Borowski's concentration camp stories were based on his own experiences surviving Auschwitz and Dachau. In spare, brutal prose he describes a world where the will to survive overrides compassion and prisoners eat, work and sleep a few yards from where others are murdered; where the difference between human beings is reduced to a second bowl of soup, an extra blanket or the luxury of a pair
Aleksandar Hemon portrait Recommended by Aleksandar Hemon.
18

The Street of Crocodiles

Bruno Schulz, Celina Wieniewska, Jerzy Ficowski

4.6
The Street of Crocodiles in the Polish city of Drogobych is a street of memories and dreams where recollections of Bruno Schulz's uncommon boyhood and of the eerie side of his merchant family's life are evoked in a startling blend of the real and the fantastic. Most memorable - and most chilling - is the portrait of the author's father, a maddened shopkeeper who imports rare birds' eggs to hatch i
19

Once

gleitzman-morris

4.6

Felix, a Jewish boy in Poland in 1942, is hiding from the Nazis in a Catholic orphanage. The only problem is that he doesn't know anything about the war, and thinks he's only in the orphanage while his parents travel and try to salvage their bookselling business. And when he thinks his parents are in danger, Felix sets off to warn them--straight into the heart of Nazi-occupied Poland.

To Felix, e

Beverley Naidoo portraitSimon Smith portrait Recommended by Beverley Naidoo and Simon Smith.
Beverley Naidoo portrait
Beverley Naidoo

The first in a series of children’s novels about a boy called Felix, a Jewish orphan, who is caught in the middle of the Holocaust [source]

Simon Smith portrait
Simon Smith

@mr_o_connor Great book. It was in my top twenty. [source]

20

Primeval and Other Times

Olga Tokarczuk, Antonia Lloyd-Jones

4.6
Winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature

Set in the mythical Polish village of Primeval, a microcosm of the world populated by eccentric, archetypal characters and guarded by four archangels, the novel chronicles the lives of the inhabitants over the course of the feral 20th century in prose that is forceful, direct, and the stylistic cousin of the magic realism in Gabriel García Márquez's One
The Captive Mind book cover21

The Captive Mind

Czesław Miłosz

4.6
Written in Paris in the early 1950s, this book created instant controversy in its analysis of modern society that had allowed itself to be hypnotized by socio-political doctrines, and to accept totalitarian terror on the strength of a hypothetical future.
Anne Applebaum portraitTimothy Snyder portrait Recommended by Anne Applebaum and Timothy Snyder.
Anne Applebaum portrait
Anne Applebaum

The Captive Mind isn’t a straight memoir. Although Milosz is writing about his own life and his past, he is also grappling with a larger subject: How his generation of liberal intellectuals came to collaborate with, and work alongside, the Communist party. And he is trying to understand his own behaviour: Why did I act that way? [source]

Timothy Snyder portrait
Timothy Snyder

Yes. Milosz tried to explain – as the title suggests – how thinking people could accept communism from inside the communist system. How does one not resist or just endure, but actually place one’s mind in the system? He points to a number of ways in which the mind can adapt. You can accept one larger truth that guides your interpretation of all of the smaller untruths, accept a vision of the future that is so bright that it drives away the shadows of the various dark acts of your own time and place. Or you can collaborate on the outside but preserve an inner core of yourself that does not collaborate on the inside. [source]

We Were the Lucky Ones book cover22

We Were the Lucky Ones

Georgia Hunter

4.5
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Inspired by the incredible true story of one Jewish family separated at the start of World War II, determined to survive—and to reunite—We Were the Lucky Ones is a tribute to the triumph of hope and love against all odds

“Love in the face of global adversity? It couldn't be more timely.” —Glamour

It is the spring of 1939 and three generations of the Kurc family are doing
Sword of Destiny (The Witcher, #0.75) book cover23

Sword of Destiny (The Witcher, #0.75)

Andrzej Sapkowski

4.5
The Witcher returns in this action-packed sequel to The Last Wish, in the series that inspired The Witcher video games.

Geralt is a witcher, a man whose magic powers, enhanced by long training and a mysterious elixir, have made him a brilliant fighter and a merciless assassin. Yet he is no ordinary murderer: his targets are the multifarious monsters and vile fiends that ravage the land and attack t
Schindler's List book cover24

Schindler's List

Thomas Keneally

4.5
In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist grew into a living legend to the Jews of Cracow. He was a womaniser, a heavy drinker and a bon viveur, but to them he became a saviour. This is the extraordinary story of Oskar Schindler, who risked his life to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland and who was transformed by the war into a man with a mission, a compassionate angel of mer
25

Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad

4.5
Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, was originally a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899. It is a story within a story, following a character named Charlie Marlow, who recounts his adventure to a group of men onboard an anchored ship. The story told is of his early life as a ferry boat captain. Although his job was to transport ivory downriver, Charlie develops an interest i
26

Ferdydurke

Danuta Borchardt, Susan Sontag, Witold Gombrowicz

4.5
In this bitterly funny novel by the renowned Polish author Witold Gombrowicz. a writer finds himself tossed into a chaotic world of schoolboys by a diabolical professor who wishes to reduce him to childishness. Originally published in Poland in 1937. Ferdydurke became an instant literary sensation and catapulted the young author to fame. Deemed scandalous and subversive by Nazis. Stalinists. and t
The Complete Maus book cover27

The Complete Maus

Art SPIEGELMAN

4.5
Combined for the first time here are Maus I: A Survivor's Tale and Maus II - the complete story of Vladek Spiegelman and his wife, living and surviving in Hitler's Europe. By addressing the horror of the Holocaust through cartoons, the author captures the everyday reality of fear and is able to explore the guilt, relief and extraordinary sensation of survival - and how the children of survivors ar
Susan Bordo portrait Recommended by Susan Bordo.
28

The Shadow of the Sun

Ryszard Kapuscinski

4.5
In 1957, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa to witness the beginning of the end of colonial rule as the first African correspondent of Poland's state newspaper. From the early days of independence in Ghana to the ongoing ethnic genocide in Rwanda, Kapuscinski has crisscrossed vast distances pursuing the swift, and often violent, events that followed liberation. Kapuscinski hitchhikes with carav
Will Storr portrait Recommended by Will Storr.
Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began (Maus, #2) book cover29

Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began (Maus, #2)

Art Spiegelman

4.5
Acclaimed as a quiet triumph and a brutally moving work of art, the first volume of Art Spieglman's Maus introduced readers to Vladek Spiegleman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, and his son, a cartoonist trying to come to terms with his father, his father's terrifying story, and History itself. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), succeeds perfectly in shocking us out o
30

Push Not the River (The Poland Trilogy Book 1)

James Conroyd Martin

4.5
A panoramic and epic novel, Push Not the River recounts the rich story of Poland in the late 1700s--a time of heartache and turmoil as the country's once peaceful people are being torn apart by neighboring countries and divided loyalties within. It is then, at the young and vulnerable age of seventeen, that young Anna Maria loses both of her parents and must leave the only home she has ever known.
31

Ogniem i mieczem (Trylogia, #1)

Henryk Sienkiewicz, Mieczyslaw Voit, et al

4.5
Ogniem i mieczem, pierwsza z powieści tworzących Trylogię, przedstawia dzieje Polski w dobie powstania Chmielnickiego (1648-1654). Pisarz, starając się wzbudzić w czytelnikach patriotyczne uczucia, nadał powieści cechy antycznego i rycerskiego eposu, wprowadził baśniowość oraz wyraźny podział na bohaterów reprezentujących dobro i zło. Jednoznacznie negatywną kwalifikację moralną przypisał Sienkiew
32

Mila 18

Leon Uris

4.4
It was a time of crisis, a time of tragedy�and a time of transcendent courage and determination. Leon Uris's novel is set in the midst of the ghetto uprising that defied Nazi tyranny, as the Jews of Warsaw boldly met Wehrmacht tanks with homemade weapons and bare fists. Here, painted on a canvas as broad as its subject matter, is the compelling story of one of the most heroic struggles of modern t
Ben Shapiro portrait Recommended by Ben Shapiro.
Salt to the Sea book cover33

Salt to the Sea

Ruta Sepetys

4.4
While the Titanic and Lusitania are both well-documented disasters, the single greatest tragedy in maritime history is the little-known January 30, 1945 sinking in the Baltic Sea by a Soviet submarine of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German cruise liner that was supposed to ferry wartime personnel and refugees to safety from the advancing Red Army. The ship was overcrowded with more than 10,500 passenge
Baptism of Fire (The Witcher Book 3) book cover34

Baptism of Fire (The Witcher Book 3)

Andrzej Sapkowski

4.4
The New York Times bestselling series that inspired the international hit video game: The Witcher
The Wizards Guild has been shattered by a coup and, in the uproar, Geralt was seriously injured. The Witcher is supposed to be a guardian of the innocent, a protector of those in need, a defender against powerful and dangerous monsters that prey on men in dark times.
But now that dark times have f
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland book cover35

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

Christopher R. Browning

4.4
Christopher R. Browning’s shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews—now with a new afterword and additional photographs.

Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi dea
Hester Vaizey portraitLawrence Kaplan portraitNorman Naimark portrait Recommended by Hester Vaizey, Lawrence Kaplan, Norman Naimark, and 1 others.
Hester Vaizey portrait
Hester Vaizey

One of my students cited this book as the reason that he carried on doing history. [source]

Lawrence Kaplan portrait
Lawrence Kaplan

The takeaway from reading this horror-filled book is that depredations on the scale of those that Browning describes can be perpetrated anywhere and by anyone. [source]

Norman Naimark portrait
Norman Naimark

The essential lesson of Ordinary Men is that genocide is not the exclusive preserve of fanatics, racist thugs and homicidal maniacs. It is part of the human condition, especially of humans living in society. [source]

36

The True Story of Hansel and Gretel

Louise Murphy

4.4
A poignant and suspenseful retelling of a classic fairy tale set in a war-torn world

In the last months of the Nazi occupation of Poland, two children are left by their father and stepmother to find safety in a dense forest. Because their real names will reveal their Jewishness, they are renamed "Hansel" and "Gretel." They wander in the woods until they are taken in by Magda, an eccentric and stub
37

Quo Vadis

Henryk Sienkiewicz, W.S. Kuniczak

4.4
This glorious saga unfolds against the backdrop of ancient Rome--from the Forum to the Coliseum, from banquet halls to summer retreats in Naples, from the luxurious houses of the nobility to the hovels of the poor, Quo Vadis richly depicts a place and time still captivating to the modern imagination. This radiant translation by W.S. Kuniczak restores the original glory and richness of master story
38

House of Day, House of Night

Olga Tokarczuk, Antonia Lloyd-Jones

4.4
The English translation of the prize-winning international bestseller Winner of the Gunter Grass Prize

Nowa Ruda is a small town in Silesia, an area that has been a part of Poland, Germany, and the former Czechoslovakia in the past. When the narrator moves into the area, she discovers everyone--and everything--has a story. With the help of Marta, her enigmatic neighbor, the narrator accumulates the
39

Poland: A History

Adam Zamoyski

4.4
As Adam Zamoyski set out to update The Polish Way, his bestselling first history of Poland, he realized the task required not so much re-writing as re-thinking the known facts well as the assumptions of the past. The events of the last twenty years and the growth of the independent Polish state allowed him to look at Poland's past with a fresh eye. Tracing Poland's complex development from the Mid
The Things We Cannot Say: A Novel book cover40

The Things We Cannot Say: A Novel

Kelly Rimmer

4.4
Now a New York Times bestseller!

From the author of Truths I Never Told You and Before I Let You Go , Kelly Rimmer’s powerful WWII novel follows a woman’s urgent search for answers to a family mystery that uncovers truths about herself that she never expected.

“Kelly Rimmer has outdone herself. I thought that Before I Let You Go was one of the best novels I had ever read…If you only have time
41

Once We Were Brothers (Liam Taggart & Catherine Lockhart, #1)

Ronald H. Balson

4.4
The gripping tale about two boys, once as close as brothers, who find themselves on opposite sides of the Holocaust.

Elliot Rosenzweig, a respected civic leader and wealthy philanthropist, is attending a fundraiser when he is suddenly accosted and accused of being a former Nazi SS officer named Otto Piatek, the Butcher of Zamosc. Although the charges are denounced as preposterous, his accuser is co
42

The Time of Contempt (The Witcher Book 2)

Andrzej Sapkowski

4.3
The New York Times bestselling series that inspired the international hit video game: The Witcher
Geralt is a witcher: guardian of the innocent; protector of those in need; a defender, in dark times, against some of the most frightening creatures of myth and legend. His task, now, is to protect Ciri. A child of prophecy, she will have the power to change the world for good or for ill -- but onl
43

Imperium

Ryszard Kapuscinski

4.3
The Polish journalist whose The Soccer War and The Emperor are counted as classics of contemporary reportage now bears witness in Imperium to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. This magisterial book combines childhood memory with unblinking journalism, a radar for the truth with a keen appreciation of the absurd.

Imperium begins with Ryszard Kapuscinski's account of the Soviet occupation of hi
Geoff Dyer portrait Recommended by Geoff Dyer.
44

The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories

Bruno Schulz, Celina Wieniewska, David Goldfarb, Jonathan Safran Foer

4.3
The collected fiction of "one of the most original imaginations in modern Europe" (Cynthia Ozick)

Bruno Schulz's untimely death at the hands of a Nazi stands as one of the great losses to modern literature. During his lifetime, his work found little critical regard, but word of his remarkable talents gradually won him an international readership. This volume brings together his complete fiction, i
David Grossman portrait Recommended by David Grossman.
45

View With a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems

Wisława Szymborska

4.3
In these one-hundred poems Wisława Szymborska portrays a world of astonishing diversity and richness, in which nature is wise and prodigal and fate unpredictable, if not mischevious. With acute irony tempered by a generous curiousity, she documents life's improbability as well as its transient beauty.
46

The Kommandant's Girl (The Kommandant's Girl, #1)

Pam Jenoff

4.3
Nineteen-year-old Emma Bau has been married only three weeks when Nazi tanks thunder into her native Poland. Within days Emma's husband, Jacob, is forced to disappear underground, leaving her imprisoned within the city's decrepit, moldering Jewish ghetto. But then, in the dead of night, the resistance smuggles her out. Taken to Krakow to live with Jacob's Catholic aunt, Krysia, Emma takes on a new
47

The Tower of Swallows (The Witcher, #4)

Andrzej Sapkowski

4.3
The Witcher returns in this action-packed sequel to Baptism of Fire, in the New York Times bestselling series that inspired The Witcher video games.

The world has fallen into war. Ciri, the child of prophecy, has vanished. Hunted by friends and foes alike, she has taken on the guise of a petty bandit and lives free for the first time in her life.

But the net around her is closing. Geralt, the Witch
48

The History of Love

Nicole Krauss

4.3
An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

Fourteen-year-old Alma Singer is trying to find a cure for her mother's loneliness. Believing she might discover it in an old book her mother is lovingly translating, she sets out in search of its author. Across New York an old man called Leo Gursky is trying to survive a little bit longer. He spends his days dreaming of the lost love who
The Devil's Arithmetic book cover49

The Devil's Arithmetic

Jane Yolen

4.3
Hannah thinks tonight Passover Seder will be the same as always. But this year she will be mysteriously transported into the past. Only she knows the horrors that await.
50

The Doll

Bolesław Prus

4.3
Warsaw under Russian rule in the late 1870s is the setting for Prus’s grand panorama of social conflict, political tension, and personal suffering. The middle-aged hero, Wokulski, successful in business, is being destroyed by his obsessive love for a frigid society doll, Izabela. Embattled aristocrats, the new men of finance, Dickensian tradesmen, and the urban poor all come vividly to life on the
51

Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass

Bruno Schulz, Celina Wieniewska

4.3
This is the second and final work of Bruno Schulz, the acclaimed Polish writer killed by the Nazis during World War II. In the words of Isaac Bashevis Singer, "What he did in his short life was enough to make him one of the most remarkable writers who ever lived." Weaving myth, fantasy, and reality, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, is, to quote Schulz, "an attempt at eliciting the histo
52

God's Playground: A History of Poland, Vol. 2: 1795 to the Present

Norman Davies

4.3
The most comprehensive survey of Polish history available in English, God´s Playground demonstrates Poland´s importance in European history from medieval times to the present. Abandoning the traditional nationalist approach to Polish history, Norman Davies instead stresses the country´s rich multinational heritage and places the development of the Jewish German, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian communiti
53

No Greater Ally: The Untold Story of Poland's Forces in World War II

Kenneth K. Koskodan

4.2
There is a chapter of World War 2 history that remains largely untold: the story of the fourth largest Allied military of the war, and the only nation to have fought in the battles of Leningrad, Arnhem, Tobruk and Normandy. This is the story of the Polish forces during the Second World War, the story of millions of young men and women who gave everything for freedom and in the final victory lost a
54

Lady of the Lake (The Witcher, #5)

Andrzej Sapkowski

4.2
The Witcher returns in this action-packed sequel to The Tower of Swallows, in the New York Times bestselling series that inspired The Witcher video games.

After walking through the portal in the Tower of Swallows while narrowly escaping death, Ciri finds herself in a completely different world... an Elven world. She is trapped with no way out. Time does not seem to exist and there are no obvious b
55

Milkweed

Jerry Spinelli

4.2
He’s a boy called Jew. Gypsy. Stopthief. Runt. Happy. Fast. Filthy son of Abraham.

He’s a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He’s a boy who steals food for himself and the other orphans. He’s a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels. He’s a boy who wants to be a Nazi some day, with tall shiny jackboots and a gleaming Eagle hat of his own. Until the day that suddenly makes him chan
56

The Boy on the Wooden Box

Leon Leyson

4.2
Even in the darkest of times—especially in the darkest of times—there is room for strength and bravery. A remarkable memoir from Leon Leyson, one of the youngest children to survive the Holocaust on Oskar Schindler’s list.

Leon Leyson (born Leib Lezjon) was only ten years old when the Nazis invaded Poland and his family was forced to relocate to the Krakow ghetto. With incredible luck, perseverance
Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 book cover57

Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956

Anne Applebaum

4.2
In the long-awaited follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag, acclaimed journalist Anne Applebaum delivers a groundbreaking history of how Communism took over Eastern Europe after World War II and transformed in frightening fashion the individuals who came under its sway.

At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territo
And Tango Makes Three book cover58

And Tango Makes Three

Justin Richardson, Peter Parnell, Henry Cole

4.2
In the zoo there are all kinds of animal families. But Tango's family is not like any of the others. This illustrated children's book fictionalizes the true story of two male penguins who became partners and raised a penguin chick in the Central Park Zoo.
59

God's Playground: A History of Poland: The Origins to 1795, Vol. 1

Norman Davies

4.2
The most comprehensive survey of Polish history available in English, God's Playground demonstrates Poland's importance in European history from medieval times to the present. Abandoning the traditional nationalist approach to Polish history, Norman Davies instead stresses the country's rich multinational heritage and places the development of the Jewish German, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian communiti
60

Stone Upon Stone

Wieslaw Mysliwski, Bill Johnston

4.2
A masterpiece of post-war Polish literature, Stone Upon Stone is Wiesław Myśliwski’s grand epic in the rural tradition—a profound and irreverent stream of memory cutting through the rich and varied terrain of one man’s connection to the land, to his family and community, to women, to tradition, to God, to death, and to what it means to be alive.

Wise and impetuous, plainspoken and compassionate Szy
61

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa

Jan Potocki, Ian Maclean

4.2
Alphonse, a young Walloon officer, is travelling to join his regiment in Madrid in 1739. But he soon finds himself mysteriously detained at a highway inn in the strange and varied company of thieves, brigands, cabbalists, noblemen, coquettes and gypsies, whose stories he records over sixty-six days. The resulting manuscript is discovered some forty years later in a sealed casket, from which tales
62

Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland

Jan T. Gross

4.2
On a summer day in 1941 in Nazi-occupied Poland, half of the town of Jedwabne brutally murdered the other half: 1,600 men, women, and children-all but seven of the town's Jews. In this shocking and compelling study, historian Jan Gross pieces together eyewitness accounts as well as physical evidence into a comprehensive reconstruction of the horrific July day remembered well by locals but hidden t
Uprooted book cover63

Uprooted

Naomi Novik

4.2
“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every te
64

Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw

Norman Davies

4.2
The story of the Warsaw Rising from the the leading British authority on the history of Poland.
Los Ninos de Irena book cover65

Los Ninos de Irena

Tilar J. Mazzeo

4.2
Tilar J. Mazzeo, autora bestseller de The New York Times, nos presenta una historia inspiradora sobre la extraordinaria y apasionante vida de Irena Sendler, una conmovedora version femenina de Oskar Schindler.
La historia de una mujer que tomo grandes riesgos para salvar a 2 500 ninos de la muerte y la deportacion en Polonia, durante la ocupacion de los nazis en la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
En 1942, a
66

A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II

Lynne Olson, Stanley Cloud

4.2
A Question of Honor is the gripping, little-known, and brilliantly told story of the scores of Polish fighter pilots who helped save England during the Battle of Britain and of their stunning betrayal by the United States and England at the end of World War II.

Centering on five pilots of the renowned Kosciuszko Squadron, the authors show how the fliers, driven by their passionate desire to liberat
67

The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman

Andrzej Szczypiorski

4.1
In the Nazi-occupied Warsaw of 1943, Irma Seidenman, a young Jewish widow, possesses two attributes that can spell the difference between life and death: she has blue eyes and blond hair. With these, and a set of false papers, she has slipped out of the ghetto, passing as the wife of a Polish officer, until one day an informer spots her on the street and drags her off to the Gestapo. At times a da
68

The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999

Timothy Snyder

4.1
Modern nationalism in northeastern Europe has often led to violence and then reconciliation between nations with bloody pasts. In this study, Timothy Snyder traces the emergence of Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Belarusian nationhood over four centuries. He discusses various atrocities (including the first account of the massive Ukrainian-Polish ethnic cleansings of the 1940s), and examines Pol
69

Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World

Jan Karski, Madeleine Albright

4.1
Jan Karski's "Story of a Secret State" stands as one of the most poignant and inspiring memoirs of World War II and the Holocaust. This definitive edition — which includes a foreword by Madeleine Albright, a biographical essay by Yale historian Timothy Snyder, an afterword by Zbigniew Brzezinski, previously unpublished photos, notes, further reading, and a glossary — is an apt legacy for this hero
70

A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True

Brigid Pasulka

4.1
On the eve of World War II, in a place called Half-Village, a young man nicknamed the Pigeon falls in love with a girl fabled for her angelic looks. To court Anielica Hetmanská he offers up his "golden hands" to transform her family’s modest hut into a beautiful home, thereby building his way into her heart.

Then war arrives to cut short their courtship, delay their marriage, and wreak havoc in al
71

Travels with Herodotus

Ryszard Kapuscinski

4.1
From the master of literary reportage whose acclaimed books include Shah of Shahs, The Emperor, and The Shadow of the Sun, an intimate account of his first youthful forays beyond the Iron Curtain.

Just out of university in 1955, Kapuscinski told his editor that he’d like to go abroad. Dreaming no farther than Czechoslovakia, the young reporter found himself sent to India. Wide-eyed and captivated,
72

The Trumpeter of Krakow

Eric P. Kelly, Janina Domanska

4.1
There is something about the Great Tarnov Crystal.... Wise men speak of it in hushed tones. Others are ready to kill for it. And now a murderous Tartar chief is bent on possessing it. But despite this, Joseph Charnetski is bound by an ancient oath to protect the jewel at all costs.

When Joseph and his family seek refuge in medieval Krakow, they are caught up in the plots and intrigues of alchemists
73

Pan Tadeusz: The Last Foray in Lithuania

Adam Mickiewicz

4.1
Pan Tadeusz is an epic poem by the Polish-Lithuanian poet, writer and philosopher Adam Mickiewicz. The book was first published in June 1834 in Paris, and is considered by many to be the last great epic poem in European literature. The story takes place over the course of five days in 1811 and one day in 1812 at a point in Polish history, when Poland-Lithuania had already been divided between Russ
74

Potop (Trylogia, #2)

Henryk Sienkiewicz, Mieczyslaw Voit, et al

4.1
Potop, druga z powieści tworzących Trylogię, przedstawia dzieje Polski w dobie najazdu Szwedów (1655-1660). Zasadniczą ideą powieści jest problem zdrady i wiernośsci, będący kryterium moralnej oceny zarówno postaci historycznych (np. Radziwiłł), jak i fikcyjnych (przede wszystkim Kmicic). Z głównym motywem wiąże się sposób prezentacji zdarzeń - Sienkiewicz ukazuje dwie fazy konfliktu polsko-szwedz
75

Here

Wislawa Szymborska, Clare Cavanagh, Stanislaw Baranczak

4.1
An exciting collection of poems by Wislawa Szymborska. When Here was published in Poland, reviewers marveled, “How is it that she keeps getting better?” These twenty-seven poems, as rendered by prize-winning translators Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak, are among her greatest work. Whether writing about her teenage self, microscopic creatures, or the upsides to living on Earth, she remains a
76

In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer

Irene Opdyke

4.1
"You must understand that I did not become a resistance fighter, a smuggler of Jews, a defier of the SS and the Nazis all at once. One's first steps are always small: I had begun by hiding food under a fence."

Through this intimate and compelling memoir, we are witness to the growth of a hero. Irene Gut was just a girl when the war began: seventeen, a Polish patriot, a student nurse, a good Catholi
77

22 Britannia Road

Amanda Hodgkinso

4.1
A tour de force that echoes modern classics like Suite Francaise and The Postmistress.

At the end of the Second World War, Silvana and eight-year-old Aurek board the ship that will take them from Poland to England. After living wild in the forests for years, carrying a terrible secret, all Silvana knows is that she and Aurek are survivors. Everything else is lost. Waiting in Ipswich is Silvana's hu
78

Ashes and Diamonds

Jerzy Andrzejewski, D. J. Welsh, Heinrich Boll, Barbara Niemczyk

4.1
Originally published in Poland in 1948, and acclaimed as one of the finest post-war Polish novels, Ashes and Diamonds takes place in the spring of 1945, as the nation is in the throes of its transformation to People' Poland. Communists, socialists, and nationalists; thieves and black marketeers; servants and fading aristocrats; veteran terrorists and bands of murderous children bewitched by the lu
All But My Life: A Memoir book cover79

All But My Life: A Memoir

Gerda Weissmann Klein

4.1
All But My Life is the unforgettable story of Gerda Weissmann Klein's six-year ordeal as a victim of Nazi cruelty. From her comfortable home in Bielitz (present-day Bielsko) in Poland to her miraculous survival and her liberation by American troops—including the man who was to become her husband—in Volary, Czechoslovakia, in 1945, Gerda takes the reader on a terrifying journey.

Gerda's serene and
Survival in Auschwitz book cover80

Survival in Auschwitz

Primo Levi

4.1
The true and harrowing account of Primo Levi’s experience at the German concentration camp of Auschwitz and his miraculous survival; hailed by The Times Literary Supplement as a “true work of art, this edition includes an exclusive conversation between the author and Philip Roth.

In 1943, Primo Levi, a twenty-five-year-old chemist and “Italian citizen of Jewish race,” was arrested by Italian fascis
81

Clara's War

Clara Kramer

4.1
On September 1, 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland. Three years later, in the small town of Żółkiew, life for Jewish 15-year-old Clara Kramer was never to be the same again. While those around her were either slaughtered or transported, Clara and her family hid perilously in a hand-dug cellar. Living above and protecting them were the Becks.

Mr. Beck was a womaniser, a drunkard and a self-professed ant
82

Chasing the King of Hearts

BOEHM Philip KRALL Hanna

4.1
An extraordinary love story, spanning 60 years, from 1939 to 2000, from the Warsaw Ghetto to Israel.

'This is the last leg of my journey. It would be silly to lose my mind now. 'After the deportation of her husband to Auschwitz, Izolda Regenberg, alias Maria Pawlicka, has only one aim: to free her husband. Her race to beat fate might appear absurd to others, but not to her. In times of war and dest
83

Cosmos

Witold Gombrowicz, Danuta Borchardt

4.1
A dark, quasi-detective novel, Cosmos follows the classic noir motif to explore the arbitrariness of language, the joke of human freedom, and man’s attempt to bring order out of chaos in his psychological life.
Published in 1965, Cosmos is the last novel by Witold Gombrowicz (1904–1969) and his most somber and multifaceted work. Two young men meet by chance in a Polish resort town in the Carpathian
84

Księgi Jakubowe

Olga Tokarczuk

4.1
Rok 1752. Do Rohatyna na Podolu przybywają kasztelanowa Katarzyna Kossakowska i towarzysząca jej poetka Elżbieta Drużbacka. Jednym z gości na powitalnej kolacji jest miejscowy proboszcz Benedykt Chmielowski, autor pierwszej polskiej encyklopedii. Ksiądz i poetka, osoby rozmiłowane w księgach, szybko znajdują wspólny język – rozpoczynają rozmowę, którą później kontynuować będą w listach.

Nieco późni
85

The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War

Halik Kochanski

4.1
The Second World War gripped Poland as it did no other country in Europe. Invaded by both Germany and the Soviet Union, it remained under occupation by foreign armies from the first day of the war to the last. The conflict was brutal, as Polish armies battled the enemy on four different fronts. It was on Polish soil that the architects of the Final Solution assembled their most elaborate network o
86

The Slave

Isaac Singer

4.1
87

Madame

Antoni Libera, Agnieszka Kolakowska

4.0
The comic "sentimental education" of a schoolboy who falls in love with his French teacher. Madame is an unexpected gem: a novel about Poland during the grim years of Soviet-controlled mediocrity, which nonetheless sparkles with light and warmth.

Our young narrator-hero is suffering through the regulated boredom of high school when he is transfixed by a new teacher --an elegant "older woman" (she i
88

Skeletons at the Feast

Chris Bohjalian

4.0
In January 1945, in the waning months of World War II, a small group of people begin the longest journey of their lives: an attempt to cross the remnants of the Third Reich, from Warsaw to the Rhine if necessary, to reach the British and American lines.

Among the group is eighteen-year-old Anna Emmerich, the daughter of Prussian aristocrats. There is her lover, Callum Finella, a twenty-year-old Sco
Poems New and Collected book cover89

Poems New and Collected

Wisława Szymborska

4.0
Described by Robert Hass as "unquestionably one of the great living European poets" and by Charles Simic as "one of the finest poets living today," Szymborska mesmerizes her readers with poetry that captivates their minds and captures their hearts. This is the book that her many fans have been anxiously awaiting - the definitive, complete collection of poetry by the Nobel Prize-winning poet, inclu
90

Shah of Shahs

Ryszard Kapuscinski

4.0
In Shah of Shahs Kapuscinski brings a mythographer's perspective and a novelist's virtuosity to bear on the overthrow of the last Shah of Iran, one of the most infamous of the United States' client-dictators, who resolved to transform his country into "a second America in a generation," only to be toppled virtually overnight. From his vantage point at the break-up of the old regime, Kapuscinski gi
Jasmin Darznik portraitSteve Crawshaw portrait Recommended by Jasmin Darznik and Steve Crawshaw.
Jasmin Darznik portrait
Jasmin Darznik

Kapuscinski is widely regarded as the greatest travel writer of the 20th century. Polish by birth, he witnessed some 40 revolutions and wars during his time as a journalist. He had already built a long and illustrious career when he found his way to Iran on the eve of the 1979 revolution. At that moment it was still a populist revolution rather than an Islamic one – the contours of the revolution were as yet undefined. So it is an interesting moment for him to have found himself on the streets of Tehran. [source]

Steve Crawshaw portrait
Steve Crawshaw

Kapuściński’s writing has a poetry to it that I adore. He was a journalist, working for the Polish state news agency, writing a lot of routine stories. Books were his release, a chance to get at the inner truth of what was happening. Some have accused him of imagining too much, but I remain loyal. Fundamentally, he doesn’t distort in the big picture. He lets things speak. It’s like a playwright’s writing, but it’s not fiction. He stands the test of time. [source]

91

Swallowing Mercury

Wioletta Greg

4.0
Wiola lives in a close-knit agricultural community. Wiola has a black cat called Blackie. Wiola's father was a deserter but now he is a taxidermist. Wiola's mother tells her that killing spiders brings on storms. Wiola must never enter the seamstress's 'secret' room. Wiola collects matchbox labels. Wiola is a good Catholic girl brought up with fables and nurtured on superstition. Wiola lives in a
92

The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom

Slavomir Rawicz

4.0
The harrowing true tale of seven escaped Soviet prisoners who desperately marched out of Siberia through China, the Gobi Desert, Tibet, and over the Himalayas to British India.
93

The Teutonic Knights

Henryk Sienkiewicz, Miroslaw Lipinksi (Editor)

4.0
The Teutonic Knights is an epic of medieval times and national destiny, ranking as one of the highest achievements from the pen of Henryk Sienkiewicz, the Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 1905. The novel follows the adventures of Macko, a resourceful and wise veteran of war, and his young nephew, Zbyszko, the symbol of a maturing nation, as they struggle, along with the unified peoples of Pola
94

The Polish Way: A Thousand-Year History of the Poles and Their Culture

Adam Zamoyski

4.0
95

A World Apart

Gustaw Herling, Andrzej Ciolkosz, Bertrand Russell

4.0
A searing, personal literary account of life in a Soviet prison camp

In 1940, Gustaw Herling was arrested after he joined an underground Polish army that fell into Russian hands. He was sent to a northern Russian labor camp, where he spent the two most terrible years of his life. In A World Apart, he tells of the people he was imprisoned with, the hardships they endured, and the indomitable spirit
Anne Applebaum portrait Recommended by Anne Applebaum.
The Tin Drum book cover96

The Tin Drum

Günter Grass

4.0

Without a doubt, The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass is a classic of Western Literature. Sardonic in tone and exuberant in its condemnation of the late 20th century world and its values, The Tin Drum is a picture of a world in upheaval. Told through the eyes of dwarf, it was Grass's first novel and it catapulted him to fame.

The Tin Drum is a portrait of German society from the 1930s to the 1950s. The n

97

Anna and the Swallow Man

Gavriel Savit

4.0
Kraków, 1939. A million marching soldiers and a thousand barking dogs. This is no place to grow up. Anna Łania is just seven years old when the Germans take her father, a linguistics professor, during their purge of intellectuals in Poland. She’s alone.

And then Anna meets the Swallow Man. He is a mystery, strange and tall, a skilled deceiver with more than a little magic up his sleeve. And when t
98

Winter Journey

Diane Armstrong

4.0
Diane Armstrong's bestselling fictional debut.

A mother's silence, a village with a terrible secret, and an Australian woman who travels to Poland to uncover the truth ...

When forensic dentist Halina Shore arrives in Nowa Kalwaria to take part in a war crimes investigation, she finds herself at the centre of a bitter struggle in a community that has been divided by a grim legacy. What she does no
99

Briar Rose

Jane Yolen, Terri Windling

4.0
A powerful retelling of Sleeping Beauty that is "heartbreaking and heartwarming."

An American Library Association "100 Best Books for Teens"
An American Library Association "Best Books for Young Adults"

Ever since she was a child, Rebecca has been enchanted by her grandmother Gemma's stories about Briar Rose. But a promise Rebecca makes to her dying grandmother will lead her on a remarkable journey t
100

A Grain of Truth (Teodor Szacki, #2)

Zygmunt Miloszewski, Antonia Lloyd-Jones

4.0
It is spring 2009, and prosecutor Szacki is no longer working in Warsaw—he has said goodbye to his family and to his career in the capital and moved to Sandomierz, a picturesque town full of churches and museums. Hoping to start a "brave new life," Szacki instead finds himself investigating a strange murder case in surroundings both alien and unfriendly.

The victim is found brutally murdered, her b